Last Day Blues activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Last Day Blues Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Julie Danneberg's book. Read aloud the picture book then use the printables or go paperless with Google or Seesaw to practice standards-based skills.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH: 

◼️ READING STRATEGIES

☐ making predictions

☐ making connections

☐ plot | problem and solution

☐ cause and effect

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ feelings

☐ transitions

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ nouns

☐ base words

☐ capitalization

☐ quotation marks

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Mrs. Hartwell and her students have reached the end of the school year and summer vacation is quickly approaching. Although the students are looking forward to their summer vacation, they worry that Mrs. Hartwell will be sad and lonely all summer. The class decides to make their teacher a gift to cheer her up.

On the last day of school, the students are ready to give Mrs. Hartwell their gift. She is happy to see they made her a poem listing all their best memories from the school year. As the students make their way home for summer vacation they consider how sad all the teachers must be. Little do they know, the teachers are just excited about summer vacation and ready to celebrate! This book makes a great read-aloud for the end of the school year!

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social-Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list-making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables